title: Cerebral malaria and the hemolysis/methemoglobin/heme hypothesis: shedding new light on an old disease.
abstract: Malaria causes more than 1 million deaths every year with cerebral malaria (CM) being a major cause of death in Sub-Saharan African children. The nature of the malaria-associated pathogenesis is complex and multi-factorial. A unified hypothesis involving sequestration of infected red blood cells, systemic host inflammatory response and hemostasis dysfunction has been proposed to explain the genesis of CM. In this review, we discuss the role of hemolysis, methemoglobin and free heme in CM, brought to light by our recent studies in mice as well as by other studies in humans.
authors.affiliation: Unidade de Malária, Instituto de Medicina Molecular, Faculdade de Medicina da Universidade de Lisboa, 1649-028 Lisboa, Portugal. anapamplona@fm.ul.pt
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pamplona
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hanscheid
authors.forename: Sabrina
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Epiphanio
authors.forename: Maria M
authors.initials: MM
authors.lastname: Mota
authors.forename: Ana M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Vigário
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006418:Heme / Q000378:metabolism*; D006461:Hemolysis; D006801:Humans; D016779:Malaria, Cerebral / Q000097:blood* / Q000201:enzymology; D008706:Methemoglobin / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D006418:Heme; D008706:Methemoglobin